I didn't mean they literally draw influence from his work; I meant it in the sense you have a bunch of mythological beings and intense symbolic imagery. It's like The Red Book'sconsciousness, to use crude wording, in video game form.

Persona 3 and 4's character art style's detract from the seriousness of the work (i.g., chibi characters do not fit in the SMT universe). I prefer Kazuma Kaneko's character art styles (e.g., DDS, If..., Persona 2, and so forth). Moreover, I do not like the emphasis on social links and so forth.

This is why I did not enjoy Devil Survivor. The character designs were hilarious.

Honestly, the idea that the art style could restrict a game from being serious is ludicrous to me. Just because the art style isn't GRIMDARK doesn't mean the game can't make a strong point or be be thought provoking. I mean, even the THOUGHT of not enjoying Devil Survivor because cat ear headphones look kind of silly seems so immature and utterly...depressing to me.

I mean, I agree that Nocturne was a deeper experience then Persona 3/4, but it's most certainly not because of the artwork and the graphics.

Also the Persona 3 dude's art style's not THAT hugely different from Kaneko's anyway. I don't really like the character modeling as much (mostly because I thought they were sort of bland looking* compared to the enemies) but their slightly odd proportions was just a throwback to the spritework in P1 and P2, I guess.

I was actually more of a fan of Survivor's artwork since it tended to be a bit more expressive than P3's. More animeish, but... more expressive. In terms of the more SD sprites Devil Survivor used, most tactical strategy games that work in a lower resolution do that. And I don't mean just SRPGs or Japanese games. It's international. You need a big screen and a better resolution to do realistic proportions right in a tactical strategy game unless it gets visually confusing which is something you DO NOT want happening.

Matter of opinion but I thought Devil Survivor had impressive graphics and artsyle compared to other SRPGS. Especially the demons. Each demon had a particular way of moving, some had 6 legs, some had none. Some had wings, some didn't. As for the characters I thought they were well detailed and were good sprite forms of their 2-D static images used for story scenes.

The sprites seemed for streamlined compared to some other SRPGS which had maybe clunkier or a lower polygon count. You know, those characters that sometimes have square heads.

Well, I'm the type that prefers minimalism instead of too much dramatization (e.g., something like Death in Venice versus Shawshank Redemption in terms of cinematography). Furthermore, I'd rather have thematic depth over too much character development, hence why I defended Strange Journey.

Also, I agree, Gen Eric Gui, but the art style and atmosphere were two huge attributes to Nocturne's style.

"Just because the art style isn't GRIMDARK doesn't mean the game can't make a strong point or be be thought provoking."

I think it's a matter of context. I love Mother 2 and 3's art style, but I do not think it fits particularly well in the Shin Megami Tensei universe. I like Osamu Tezuka's character art (e.g., his mature and dark MW), but I don't think it's accustomed for Shin Megami Tensei games. Of course, art style is simply just one attribute and does not determine the seriousness of a piece of art as my reference to Tezuka's Gekiga (i.g., MW, Ayako, Phoenix, Buddha, and etc.) indicates...

Granted, I apologize for stating my preference as a fact; I should have made that more obvious.

Also, X-Com is not a good comparison. It tries to depict symbolic imagery rather than display expressive, cartoony graphics: "It runs on our idea of what suburban America or the sands of Egypt look like, not the reality, because reality is not as real to us as the symbols, to get into some Baudrillard. It’s all symbolic and pop-cultural. These are pop-cultural aliens invading a pop-cultural earth to be “defended”, I use that term loosely, by a pop-cultural government conspiracy. And it feels real. With those beautiful isometric graphics and that haunting music, it feels real" (Sagrillo).

It tries to depict symbolic imagery rather than display expressive, cartoony graphics

Actually it did try to do expressive, cartoony graphics. The art style's really heavily influenced by anime and 80's western comic book art. When the sequels got away from that people got annoyed (although, personally, I LIKE the wet meat puppet look Apoc had going).

Quote

It’s all symbolic and pop-cultural.

Right. And being a symbolic, pop-cultural representation of things is the entire driving force behind why comics and anime exist. It's a very specific kind of non-realism that's NOT abstract and thus HAS to work with symbols.

Logged

o/` I do not feel joy o/`o/` I do not dream o/`o/` I only stare at the door and smoke o/`

If megaten is in fact going HD, having an artstyle similar to Tales of Vesperia seems to do the job of looking good while still maintaining the anime feel. I think Vesperia is too much on the cute side, but considering if they'll keep the semi-static anime portraits in character dialogue or not it could work.

I don't know if a cel-shading look could remove that dark mood of the game because we usually associate cel-shading with colorful things and all, even Crackdown and Borderlands look happier then I believe the developers who made them wanted to.

On the other hand, I full 3D look as Resonance of Fate, Star Ocean or even more serious like FFXIII could work for the better because we can have much more details, plus the world feels more lifelike instead of "animeish". As for the artwork, I prefer much more the looks of Persona 3 & 4 (anyone knows who did the characters ?) edit (Just found out: Shigenori Soejima, for Persona 4 at least)

True. I kinda forgot it when posting. So there we go, it should work just fine, if not better.I just feel said they don't have the same money as Square-Enix to spare on advertising, if they did their games would be getting much more attention! Not to mention, raise the production value of their games.

With popularity comes the morons. And when the morons come, you get demands of "Faster! Better Graphics! Shorter Cutscenes!".Then Atlus will start feeling the pressure. If they are happy with the sales they are getting at the moment (They usually go beyond their sales predictions, don't they?) then it's safe to say money won't come in the way of artistic integrity.

SMT's already faster and has shorter cutscenes than most JRPGs, which is probably one of the reasons I still like it >:/

Are you only including the main SMT games? If so, that is true. Cutscenes are few and far between, and very short. However if we were to count the likes of Persona 3 + 4, as well as Devil Survivor you would spend a large chuck of gameplay in cutscenes and story related events.

Personally I like both, I think main SMT says what it needs to in a small about of time, whilst Persona and other spin-offs indulge you in more characterization and intrigue.